


four ways dan rydell didn't become a father (and one way he did)

by anothercover



Category: Sports Night
Genre: Dan Rydell is a bisexual icon, F/M, I am not a sports person and this show always convinces me I could be, Implied/Referenced Abortion, M/M, Pregnancy, Unplanned Pregnancy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-29
Updated: 2018-03-29
Packaged: 2019-04-14 11:43:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,226
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14135382
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anothercover/pseuds/anothercover
Summary: The title is the summary. Dan Rydell is unto himself a world of infinite possibilities.





	four ways dan rydell didn't become a father (and one way he did)

  
  


**1\. welcome to the hotel de españa**

The paternity test is handled quickly and quietly, and a few days after the kid is born, it’s official. Dan is the father of a six pound, eight ounce baby girl.

“But I’ve _never been to Spain_ ,” is all Dan says, staring at Dr. Adler in disbelief. He can’t blink. He can’t breathe. He’s sure any second, Casey’s going to pop out from under the desk and yell “Gotcha! That’s what happens when you puke in my car twice in one week.”

He only agreed to take the test in the first place to shut Bobbi up. He never thought - never imagined - oh, God, his father is going to kill him. 

“I’ve never been to Spain,” he repeats weakly.

Dr. Adler pats him on the shoulder, not unsympathetic. “It would seem otherwise, Daniel.”

* * *

Dan goes to Casey before he goes to Bobbi, before he even goes to see the baby. He knows that makes him an asshole, but since he’s spent the better part of the last nine months calling Bobbi a psychotic stalker on a break from reality, he figures an asshole is pretty much what he is, so what’s another few hours?

Lisa answers the door, one hand pressed to her swollen belly, and Dan’s insides start churning. 

She and Casey are having a boy. Last weekend, Dan helped Casey wallpaper the trim in the baby’s room with a frieze of baseballs and catchers’ mitts. Casey is so excited to be a dad, and Dan remembers thinking how _good_ he’ll be at this, how he’s the kind of guy that’s born to be a father. 

Casey has already stockpiled books he wants to read to his son. He’s already determined to instill a love of baseball in him.

Dan doesn’t even know what color his daughter’s hair is. 

His daughter. There’s that vomiting feeling again. 

“Dan?” Lisa prods gently. “Maybe you should sit down. I’ll get Casey.”

Dan grunts an affirmation and fairly collapses into one of the high backed chairs at the kitchen table. He’s never been wild about Lisa, and she’s never warmed to him, but they tolerate each other for Casey’s sake and she left the room without questions, and right now, those are qualifications enough for Dan to consider her a great humanitarian. 

When Casey walks into the kitchen, he takes one look at Dan’s face and he knows. “You’ve been to Spain.”

Dan nods miserably. 

“Oh, Danny.”

“You’re an uncle,” Dan says. He tries to force a laugh and it sounds like his lungs giving a death rattle inside his chest. “Uncle Casey.”

“Have you told Bobbi yet?”

“Case, I am riding a six story wave of self pity here. I’m pretty much drowning in it. And this is unfortunate, because I’m fully cognizant of the fact that I’ve been a _shit_ to Bobbi, who’s gone through hell and worse lately. So. I don’t get to drown in self-pity. But it would seem that I’m doing it anyway.” 

Casey silently goes to the fridge and comes back with a beer, which he hands to Dan. When Danny looks up at him questioningly, he says, “Call it a flotation device. For the pity pool.”

That’s the moment Dan fully grasps how bad this is, because Casey always gets twitchy about giving Dan alcohol. He won’t be 21 for another couple of months and holy shit shit shit, he has a _kid_ before he’s old enough to buy his own beer.

He drains most of the bottle in two pulls.

* * *

To her enormous and eternal credit, Bobbi does not say “I told you so.” She looks too tired for that, she’s pale and drained and Dan realizes that he has done this to her.

“I’m so sorry,” he says for the umpteenth time, his voice cracking on the last syllable.

“I hope she doesn’t inherit your vocabulary,” Bobbi says wearily. “It’s extremely limited.”

Dan smiles, a little. He thinks under different circumstances, he could have really liked this girl. 

“I’m not going to put her up for adoption,” Bobbi tells him suddenly, her voice fierce and ready for a fight. “If that’s what you’re here to ask, I won’t do it. I _won’t_.” 

Dan’s temper flares, because Jesus, what kind of a man does she think he _is_ , when a voice in the back of his head that sounds suspiciously like Casey pipes to life. 

_She thinks you’re the kind of man who pretends you never slept with her to get out of responsibility. Look at her, Danny. Really look at her._

He bites back his angry words, and he looks.

Bobbi’s jaw is jutting out, proud and defiant, but her eyelashes are wet and trembling. Her lower lip quivers, and he gets it, suddenly, he recognizes this. He takes a seat next to her on the bed. 

“Is that what your parents told you to do?” Dan asks quietly.

She nods once and takes a deep, shaky breath. “My parents haven’t spoken to me since I told them.”

“Mine won’t, either. It’s okay.”

“It’s _not_ okay,” Bobbi snaps, her voice shrill. “I had _plans_ , Dan, I had plans for my life, and they didn’t include a _kid_! And now I’m _stuck_ , I have a _baby_ , and she’s - she’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen, but she wasn’t supposed to come along until I was _thirty_ and the father was not supposed to be some asshole who can’t keep track of his drunken one nighters!”

When she dissolves into angry tears, Dan reaches out and rubs her back. He’s surprised when she lets him. He wants to tell her that she’s not alone, that he’s in this, too, but right now, he just lets her cry. He’s got a feeling this is the first time she’s let herself do it since she found out she was pregnant. 

Bobbi’s blowing her nose when a nurse wheels the baby into the room, in her little plastic crib. “Almost time for a feeding,” she singsongs. 

Dan shifts off the bed. “Can I, uh. Can I hold her?”

The nurse looks to Bobbi, who shrugs. “Why not.”

He decides now is not the time to point out he was just being polite and didn’t _have_ to ask, because the nurse is depositing the baby into his arms, murmuring instructions about how to support her neck.

She’s small. She’s very, very small, and much quieter than he expected. Dan thought babies screeched around the clock, but she just smacks her lips a few times. She looks completely comfortable, and Bobbi was right about her being the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen. 

He looks at Bobbi and for a second he can’t speak. 

“I named her Rachel,” she tells him softly. 

“Huh,” Dan says, staring down at his daughter’s tiny, scrunched up face. “Very nice to meet you, Rachel Rydell.”

“Bernstein.”

“Rydell.”

“That’s patriarchal bullshit.”

“It’s still Rydell.”

“You weren’t even here through the pregnancy. In fact, I bet you’re still convinced that you’ve never been to Spain and this is the result of me collecting your sperm with a turkey baster.”

That one makes Dan blink, but he stays firm. “Rydell.”

“So that’s it, Dan? This is your magical, transcendent, cliché romcom moment? You see me get a little weepy, you hold your daughter, and you suddenly decide you’re ready to be a daddy?”

“I didn’t say I was ready, but it seems to me that I’m a daddy regardless,” he says. “I’m in it, Bobbi. I’m in it, and she’s Rachel Rydell.”

Bobbi looks at him for a long, long moment.

“Rachel Bernstein-Rydell,” she finally says. 

“Okay, but you’re messing up some spectacular alliteration.” 

Bobbi smiles at him over the top of their daughter’s head. 

Just a little. Just enough.

  


**2\. thanks for the memories**

Over Thanksgiving weekend, Casey goes to Austin to cover the A&M/UT game. He and Lisa have a fight before he leaves, the latest in a string that have been getting increasingly worse. She’s mad that he’s leaving over Thanksgiving, he’s angry that she can’t understand that this game is important, and Dan decides to stay out of it since this is the one time he can kind of see Lisa’s point.

Dan could have covered the game. He’s a single guy, he’s not heading home to Connecticut and he’s made no plans for Thanksgiving. It made more sense than Casey leaving his wife for two days. He’d even _offered_ to take it, for all those reasons, and Casey had practically begged him to leave it alone.

“I don’t see why you’re surprised that she’s pissed when you deliberately did something you knew would piss her off,” Dan says when Casey calls from his hotel room, sulking about the fight. “And don’t pretend that you didn’t.”

Casey sighs. “It’s complicated.”

“Okay, partner,” Dan says, and thinks _it’s your fiery wreck of a marriage, not mine._

Lisa calls Dan at noon on Thanksgiving. He’s watching the Macy’s parade in his boxers and eating Captain Crunch by the fistful, missing the snow and the cold and the lights in New York. Dallas is starting to get on his nerves.

“You may as well come over,” she says flatly. 

“Hell of an invitation there, Lees.” 

“I cooked the goddamned turkey. Do you want some or not?”

He doesn’t, but this is the first time in the history of DannyandCasey, CaseyandDanny that he really does feel bad for Lisa. It’s the first time that he thinks Casey’s acted like an insensitive ass. And no matter what’s going on with them, he knows Casey wouldn’t want her to be alone on a holiday with only a fifteen pound dead bird carcass for company. 

So he pulls on some cords and an old Dartmouth tee shirt, and he goes. 

It’s an uncomfortable meal that is made considerably better by the many, many bottles of wine they run through. When the dishes are washed and put away, they hang out in the living room, watching the Charlie Brown Thanksgiving special. 

Lisa has moved on to margaritas by then, and Dan’s on his third bourbon. They’re very, very drunk. He’s going to have to sleep in the guest room tonight. 

“I wonder how the game’s going,” he comments. Lisa scares him a little, so he didn’t ask if he could watch it after dinner even though he very much wanted to.

She scowls and takes a deep slurp from the pitcher. She gave up on drinking from a glass twenty minutes ago. “I hope they lose.”

“You hope who loses?”

“ _Both_ of them. Both of the stupid - fucking - football, I hope they lose.”

“He’s not there rooting for a team, Lisa, he’s covering it for the show.”

“I don’t care,” she sulks. “I want them to _lose_.” 

“You’re drunk.”

“You’re an asshole.”

“Fair enough, I guess.”

“My marriage sucks because of you,” she says flatly. “You know that? You know that my marriage sucks because of you?”

This is why Dan should never, ever feel bad for Lisa, even when Casey’s the one who fucked up. “Lees - ”

“No, I mean it,” she says, spinning to face him. “You and your goddamned show. It’s never - he never cares about what’s best for _us_ , he only cares about staying with you. He hasn’t fucked me in over a month and even if he did, he’d wish he was fucking you. Danny Danny Danny. That’s all he ever thinks about.”

She’s telling the truth and what’s more, he knows it, but all he says is “ _Lisa_.” 

“Do you wish you were fucking him, too?”

“You’re drunk,” Dan repeats, a little desperately this time. “Why don’t you go sleep it off, huh?” 

“You want to fuck my husband. Just say it.”

“That’s what you want to hear? That’s gonna make you feel better?”

“ _Yes_.”

She‘s a bitch and he’s drunkdrunkdrunk and he‘s never said it out loud, but the words come spilling from his mouth before he can think. “I want to fuck your husband. I want _badly_ to fuck your husband.”

The crack of her palm across his face is sharp and sudden and not entirely unexpected. He figures he deserves that. But when she moves to hit him again, he catches her wrists and they struggle ineffectively, each trying to get the upper hand. It’d probably look funny, two drunks wrestling, if Lisa didn’t look close to tears and if Dan’s chest didn’t feel so tight.

Her jaw smacks against his with an audible crack, and he grabs at her hair, tugging her head back. And then her mouth is on his, punishing and bruising. Her lips are cold and she tastes like limes. 

He shoves her away, but somehow she’s back on top of him. They roll off the couch; her hands are fumbling with his pants. 

Dan would never do anything to hurt Casey. Never. Casey’s the most important person in his life, he’s maybe the only person that Dan’s ever really loved, and he would never screw that up. Casey’s his best friend. 

Except that right now, he’s fucking his best friend’s wife on his best friend’s coffee table in his best friend’s house, fucking her hard and it’s amazingly good, for drunk hate sex. She’s got her legs wrapped tightly around his waist and riding with him, she’s clawing his back and moaning.

When Dan comes, he doesn’t make any noise at all.

* * *

Seven years later, when the divorce is final, Dan holds his breath for a month. Lisa has nothing to lose, now, because she’s already lost Casey. She has every opportunity to say something, to take Casey away from Dan, to ruin Sports Night, to set fire to their friendship.

She never does, and he thinks maybe she’s not the horrible, vindictive bitch he always made her out to be.

* * *

Lisa’s heading out of town for the weekend with her boyfriend, so on Friday, Charlie’s going to hang out at the CSC building after school for awhile. He’ll make paper airplanes with Jeremy and record Darth Vader voices in the sound booth with Natalie. He’ll have pie with Dana at craft services, Isaac will tell him a story about a NASA mission, and when he falls asleep on Dan and Casey’s couch, Dan will cover him with a blanket. Everybody loves the days Charlie comes to stay.

Charlie’s playing kickball with some of his buddies on the blacktop when Dan accompanies Casey to pick him up after school. He hates baseball, but he’s good at this, laughing and cheering and slapping hands with the other kids.

Casey watches his son with enormous pride. “God, he’s getting so big. He looks like me, don’t you think?” 

Dan smiles and agrees, and when he goes home at the end of the night, he makes sure there are no pictures in his apartment of his brother, back when they were kids. No pictures that Casey could run across, none with Sam’s dirty blonde hair and the gap in his front teeth. 

None where Sam is laughing.

  


**3\. somebody who outdrew you**

Rebecca schedules the abortion for a Tuesday, a very sunny Tuesday in April. 

Steve is already in Los Angeles, waiting for her to come join him the following Friday. He has a house picked out for them, he says, she’ll love it. Spanish tiles and a lemon tree in the backyard, a quick drive to the beach. A good place for starting over. 

It really wasn’t as though she’d have chosen anything different, anyway. There is no shame in it, none at all. She and Danny hadn’t been dating nearly long enough for this, and even if they were still together, she tells herself that she would make exactly the same choice. 

She loved him, she feels sure of that. But they wouldn’t have been ready – he wasn’t ready for _this_. He was still a big kid himself.

Except.

She remembers the curve of his fingers around a baseball, teaching her coworkers how to pitch, his laughing eyes and his gentle determination, how he knew when to push her and when to back away. He would have been good at this. She remembers that and she knows she’s being unfair. 

But what other choice could she have made? 

When her plane gets in on Friday, Steve greets her with flowers and a kiss at the gate, and she tells herself that it will be different, that he will be different. They’re in counseling, they have a house with a lemon tree. This time, she’ll be happy and that the things she’s given up are worth this second chance. 

She does not think of a baseball game and champagne spilled on the sheets and a night at the Saint Regis. 

Instead, she makes Steve take her to Nobu, where she orders a Mai Tai and an enormous platter of sushi. She’s not crazy about the texture, never has been, but the point is that she _can_. 

She drinks three cups of coffee the next morning. That afternoon, she makes an appointment at a salon in Beverly Hills to dye her hair southern California blonde, because she can do that, too, and she pretends that some other Rebecca is back in New York with Dan. 

Some other Rebecca with red hair, who will get to hear Dan’s happy shout and be kissed breathless when she tells him they’re going to have a baby. 

 

**4\. something old, something new**

Three months into the pregnancy, they decide it’s time to announce their good news to the office. “It’s the Rydell swimmers,” Dan boasts at the two o’clock rundown, once the hugs and the crying and the congratulations have died down. “Virile. Potent.” 

“I will give you ten thousand dollars to stop describing your sperm, Danny,” Casey groaned. 

“Olympic-caliber.” 

Natalie cuffs him upside the head. “You’re not giving my eggs any credit for this at all, _ass_ ,” she says. Dan carefully tugs her down onto his lap, lays a kiss on her that makes Kim and Dana simultaneously coo “Aww.”

Pregnancy is kind to Natalie. As the months go on, she only has one rough patch of morning sickness that usually strikes an hour before airtime, and she never succumbs to fatigue. She has excessive energy, she’s glowing and bouncing and eating and peeing, and every ten seconds Danny proudly pats her belly. 

“Oh my God, he’s _kicking_ ,” Natalie exclaims, pressing her hands flat to her stomach. She’s huge and looks like she’s been pregnant for about thirteen months instead of seven, but she’s insisted on working right up until her due date, and Dan had known better than to argue.

“It’s a boy?” Jeremy asks. “You had the ultrasound?”

“No, we decided to be surprised, but Natalie has a _feeling_ ,” Dan explains.

“Ah, yes, one of Natalie’s _feelings_ ,” Jeremy says. They exchange the kind of amused look that could only be shared by men who had seen the same woman naked many, many times. 

Casey has no idea how things aren’t awkward and uncomfortable between the two of them. He asked Dan once and Dan had shrugged and said “I don’t know. They’re just not.” It probably helped that Jeremy had a new girlfriend, now, one of his sister’s friends from Amherst. 

“Keep it up, Dan, and you’re not going to be _feeling_ anything for a long, long time,” Natalie threatens. “And I think you know what I mean by _feeling_.”

“I know what you mean, Nat.”

“Do you?”

“I have a pretty good idea.”

“Because I mean sex.”

“Yeah, I got that.”

Kim comes over to feel Natalie’s stomach. “Kicking like crazy,” she announces to the room at large. “Dan, your boy’s gonna be a soccer player.”

“Bite your tongue, hellspawn,” Dan says. 

“Seriously, we’re talking striker,“ Kim teases. “Watch out, Beckham. Rydell Junior, zooming towards the net.”

Dan glares at her and places both hands at the side of Natalie’s belly.

“Danny, what the hell are you doing?” Natalie asks pleasantly. 

“I’m covering the spot where I think his ears might be. I’m not having Kim pollute my progeny’s brain with inappropriate notions about a future in s-o-c-c-e-r.”

“Yeah, that’s a good point, sweetie,” she tells him. “In fact, why don’t you have Casey go get your iPod and some headphones. I’ll strap them to my stomach and we can play the Russ Hodges broadcast from when the Giants won the pennant during the show, while you’re doing soccer scores.”

“Hey, Case - ”

“I was _kidding_.”

“That doesn’t make it a bad idea.”

* * *

They had started trying for a baby six months after their wedding, and Natalie was pregnant in almost no time at all. That’s how Dan’s luck has gone since he and Natalie came together.

On Natalie’s 29th birthday, everyone had gone for drinks, and at the end of the night, she and Dan had been the last ones left at the bar. They’d split the cab ride home, he’d walked her up to her apartment.

“And I started thinking about playing Celebrities, and her mood swings when she’s drunk, and her coffee mug full of lollipops, and it seemed to make sense to kiss her,” Danny had told Casey the next day, eyes large, still a little shell shocked. “So I did. I kissed Natalie. I kissed _Natalie_. I kissed Natalie _with tongue_. She’s going to withhold our pants for the next seven months.” 

She hadn’t withheld pants. 

They’d gone out again that night. And then spent the entire weekend together. And then the rest of the week. Dan brought her flowers one day and she hauled him into the supply closet the next. They flirted over the mics at c-breaks and played footsie once or twice during rundown meetings. Dan came to work _whistling_.

The entire crew of Sports Night had walked on eggshells. They were certain it wouldn’t last. 

Everyone had a different theory. Natalie was rebounding from breaking up with Jeremy. Dan was using her for sex. They were just fuck buddies. They were playing a practical joke.

For his part, Casey had fallen into the “Natalie’s rebounding” camp, and he had been unnecessarily brusque with her. He knew Dan well enough to discern between Dan liking a woman and Dan being serious about a woman, and it was evident that Natalie fell into the latter camp. 

Dana had been the one to tell Casey to knock it off. She’d told him that he was Danny’s best friend, he should be happy for him, and since Natalie was _her_ best friend, if he didn’t lay the hell off her, she would have him making puns while introducing five highlight packages in a row, on cameras two and three, for the next month and a half. 

Casey is still trying. 

He tried when Dan told him, “I’m going to ask Natalie to marry me.” He tried when Dan brought him with to pick out the ring. He tried after she said yes and when Dan asked him to be his best man. He tried when he’d given a wedding toast that he’d spent hours on, only to be effortlessly trumped by Isaac. 

And now that Dan’s about to be a father, Casey is still trying, and he’s so angry with himself for having so much difficulty. He’s _glad_ Dan’s so happy, because if anybody deserves to come home to a beautiful wife, to be expecting a baby, to finally have all the chips in order, it’s Dan. 

Unfortunately, he seems to be spending more time thinking thoughts like _I used to be the person Dan told everything to, everything. Natalie was pregnant for three months before he said a word, and I found out in a room full of people_. 

It was stupid and childish and immature. Danny was still his best friend. 

Except Danny had a wife now. 

After the show, he would take his wife to a movie or go home with her, instead of going for drinks with Casey or to Casey’s apartment to mock West Coast. On weekends, they would sometimes play racquetball, but more often, he would be shopping for baby stuff – with his wife. If Casey came over for pizza, beer, and a game, Dan’s wife was there, too, hanging out on the couch with them, her feet on Danny’s lap, hollering at the ref.

And it wasn’t _Dan’s wife, Dan’s pregnant wife_ , some anonymous woman who Casey didn’t have to warm to but who he’d like well enough. It was _Natalie_. He couldn’t think of Natalie as just some woman that Dan happened to be married to, that he didn’t _really_ have to share Danny with. 

Dan was still Casey’s best friend, but now he was Natalie’s partner.

* * *

Natalie’s water breaks at the ten o’clock rundown. Dana starts shrieking for someone to get a cab while Dan starts crooning, “Okay, remember, out-out-out-in-in-in, breathe-breathe-breathe, just like we did in class. _Out_ and _in_ and - _breathe, Natalie_! You have to do the breathing thing!”

Natalie, who is perfectly calm, just rolls her eyes. 

Bobbi Bernstein has been on call all week, waiting in the wings to go on for Dan in case this happened. Dan and Natalie hurry out of the building, the crew calling encouragement and well-wishes as they go.

And suddenly, so fast that Casey can’t explain it, things get really, really clear. 

Dan is his best friend. Dan has never stopped being his best friend, and this is the biggest moment of Danny’s life. He has been acting like a petty, jealous child. 

Casey turns to Jeremy. 

“Is it too late to get Peter or Paul in for me?”

“Are you in labor, too?” Jeremy wisecracks.

All Casey can think of to say is “Danny was there when Charlie was born.”

Jeremy gets it. He nods, understanding. “Go. I’ll take care of Dana, I’ll figure something out.”

* * *

There’s a lot of waiting and pacing and consumption of hospital sludge attempting to pass itself off as coffee.

At five in the morning, Dan comes staggering out of the delivery room, still in scrubs and a cap. He throws his arms around Casey, hugging him, and Casey hugs back fiercely.

“It’s a boy!” Danny shouts in Casey’s ear, like he can’t believe it himself. “Her feeling was right. It’s a _boy_. Casey, Casey, I’m a dad. I have a son.”

“You have a son,” Casey echoes, grinning from ear to ear. “My God, Danny.”

“He’s seven pounds, four ounces, and he’s got all this hair, and Natalie did _great_ , Case, she did so great. We have a little boy.” Dan’s voice breaks on the last word, and Casey has never heard him sound so happy. “Samuel Joshua Rydell.”

“I hope he got Natalie’s nose,” Casey says, rubbing Dan’s back.

Dan laughs into his shoulder. “God, Case. I couldn’t do this without you. I’m glad you’re here.”

“Me, too, Danny,” Casey tells him. “Me, too. I wouldn’t have missed it.” 

It feels really good to finally mean that.

  


**+1. here’s everything i always meant to say**

When Charlie and Anna decide that they’re ready to have sex, Charlie goes to Dan for advice.

“I can’t talk to my dad about this stuff and my mom would kill me,” he begs him. “Dan, _please_?” 

Dan looks at the seventeen year old kid in front of him and wonders when the shy little guy with the spiky blonde hair and the missing tooth disappeared. Charlie’s hair darkened as he got older, and he’s catching up to Casey’s height. He’s tall and lanky, he has a driver’s license and a comprehensive command of AP Calculus and English literature, and he’s about to have sex with the girl he’s been dating for a year and a half.

And unlike other kids his age, he’s not just going out and doing it. He had to come to someone for advice and tips.

Dan has to grin. Charlie is so very Casey McCall’s son. 

So he does the best he can, as straightforward as possible. Condoms. Spermicide. Birth control pills. The morning after pill, if necessary. Foreplay is important. Don’t be worried if the first time isn’t anything spectacular, because it gets better with practice. The usual boilerplate, all the things he wishes he could have been able to talk to his own dad about.

Charlie is bright red and sputtering, but they make it through okay, and at the end, Dan is pleased and surprised and more than a little choked up when Charlie gives him a spontaneous hug before he ambles out the door.

There’s a little something of the shy little guy with the spiky hair and missing tooth still in there after all.

That night, Casey and Dan are watching the Giants game, and Casey’s playing with the hair at the nape of Dan’s neck in a comfortably distracting way. 

“You know, I had to give Charlie the talk about the birds and the bees today,” Dan mentions, because he can’t _not_. He might be the cool one, but not telling Casey his son is having sex, well, he’s seen enough sitcoms to know the truth would come out and then Dan would end up sleeping alone on the couch for a week.

Casey’s bottle of Bud pauses halfway to his mouth. “Excuse me?”

“Charlie and Anna decided to have sex,” Dan tells him, calmly. “I could have given him the abstinence spiel, but he seemed like his mind was already made up, so we covered the basics.”

“Condoms? Spermicide? The pill?”

“No, I told him to just pull out when he got close. Come on, Casey.”

Casey lets out a groan. “My seventeen year old son is having sex.”

“He’s a good kid, Case. He’ll be smart about it. They both will.” They watch the game in silence for a few minutes, then he sneaks another look at Casey. “Are you upset?”

“That my _seventeen year old son is having sex_? Yes. But it had to happen sometime, so I may as well get used to it.”

“No. I mean because he came to me instead of you.”

Casey sets his bottle down, mutes the TV. “Why would that bother me?”

“I don’t know. You’re his dad. I was happy that he talked to someone, but - ”

“Danny.” Casey slides his hand down to cup the back of Dan’s neck firmly, pull him close. “You were there when he was born. You were there when I took him to his first baseball game. You’ve cleaned up his puke. You’ve driven him to school. He loves you. I’ve _always_ thought of you as his other dad, and if he came to you with something like this, clearly, he has, too. What more do you want, your name on his birth certificate?”

Dan takes a deep breath so that he won’t get emotional. “You’re a pretty smooth talker there, Case.”

“That’s why they pay me the big bucks.” 

Danny leans up to kiss him. It always surprises him, how lucky he feels every time he gets to do this. Casey smiles against his mouth, bites his bottom lip playfully for a little while.

“And I love you, too, a little,” Casey adds, when they’re sprawled together on the couch, much more focused on making out than on watching the game.

“Back atcha, partner.”

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Another entry in the "cleaning out an old livejournal; found this thing I forgot that I wrote; realized in retrospect that I liked it a lot." And have now been cleaning my apartment and cooking and laundrying with Sports Night on in the background for the last two days. This show holds up! Most rewatches don't reward you, they just make you think 'oh God what was I doing with my life'. God bless and watch over Josh Charles.


End file.
